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Welcome to the Stockyard of Unaffordability March 20, 2026
The herd here in The Stockyard of Unaffordability isn't cheered much by the cost of a TV dropping $50 while everything essential to life has gone up by $500 or $5,000.
Welcome to the herd jammed into The Stockyard of Unaffordability, where prices keep rising and it gets more crowded as those who reckoned they were always going to be able to afford their free-spending ways end up here. As I have endeavored to explain in recent posts, asymmetries of scaling and risk create extremes that undermine our standard of living and quality of life: 1. Asymmetric scaling of credit generates self-liquidating credit-asset bubbles that pop, devastating the economy: Why Credit Creates Bubbles That Break the Economy. 2. Asymmetric scaling of AI malware and slop are making an AI Depression inevitable: Why AI Malware (and Harmful Second Order Effects) Are Out of Control 3. Asymmetries of risk, resources and wealth generate mutually reinforcing crises, i.e. a polycrisis with no easy resolution: This Polycrisis Is Unique 4. Recency bias (the Fed always rides to the rescue) and asymmetries of credit / speculation generate rosy projections of limitless expansion of wealth, until the bubbles all pop at once: Paging Nostradamus: You Have a Margin Call 5. When asymmetries of risk, credit, etc. create extremes that break down, this leads to Model Collapse, the collapse of the status quo's understanding of how the world supposedly works: Iran, En-Lai, Napoleon, Mike Tyson and Model Collapse Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. 6. All these realities are obscured by the perverse incentives to flood every nook and cranny of media with sensationalized click-bait / slop: Perverse Incentives Have Created a Runaway Media Monster Meanwhile, the asymmetries of credit that benefit the wealthiest few at the expense of everyone else are jacking up prices across the entire economy, a trend that is boosted by geopolitical risks and scarcities. The bill from the veterinary clinic went from $150 to $1,000 because private equity bought up all the clinics to assemble a local quasi-monopoly. The same thing happened in rental housing: once the dominant owner jacks up rents, all the small-fry owners follow suit, a dynamic that ratchets rents higher. Here in the The Stockyard of Unaffordability, people can no longer afford rent, healthcare, childcare, senior care, higher education, insurance, vehicle repairs or a pet. But TVs that deliver adverts 24/7 got a few bucks cheaper because the TV manufacturers now make more money selling ads than they do manufacturing TVs. The herd here in The Stockyard of Unaffordability isn't cheered much by the cost of a TV dropping $50 while everything essential to life has gone up by $500 or $5,000. All the bogus statistics don't change anything in the stockyard: prices have leaped by 40+%, and they're not dropping back to previous levels. So what difference does it make that prices are now (smirk) rising by only 3%. Uh, yeah, sure, whatever. All this is driven by limitless greed thriving in a culture of moral decay. The greediest sociopaths now control the system's gearing: finance, the open auction of political influence, legal protections for the most rapacious corporations, Anti-Progress / erosion of quality, endless increases in prices, junk fees and property / excise taxes, and so on. If you're feeling squeezed, we've got a credit card offer with a low, low interest rate of 21%. So go ahead and spend, take control of your life... by becoming a debt-serf here in The Stockyard of Unaffordability. 
Want to park your vehicle at the trailhead for a family hike on public land? That'll cost you $30 now. The meter maid just left a $90 ticket on your windshield, and if you don't pay on time, the cost soars from there. The screen just went out on your laptop, the replacement costs $450. There's a couple of things wrong with your vehicle, we can patch it up for $1,200 but getting it done right will be $4,500. And so on. Here in the stockyard, all the glowing slop about AI, soaring stocks and the great economy are like calling botched cosmetic surgery natural beauty. You're joking, right? 
The majority now crammed into The Stockyard of Unaffordability have discovered that democracy is unaffordable now, too as the Financier Oligarchs and Tech Overlords "own" the machinery of democracy just like they own the data centers and the cartels that control every sector of the economy. 
As our immiseration mounts and the herd becomes increasingly restless, three things to consider: It's harder for bad things to happen when you have no debt. Ergo: sell now and liquidate debt. Greed is a wonderful motivator but fear works much faster. Ergo: expect panic to self-reinforce to non-linearity, where events become unpredictable and second-order effects manifest in unexpected ways. 
"My definition of self-reliance: the less you need, the easier it is to get what you need." CHS (7/26/25) Ergo: waste nothing, get lean in every sense of the word. Self-Reliance in the 21st Century New podcast: Current Waves and Cycles: Energy, Commodities, Inflation (38 min) My new book Investing In Revolution is available at a 10% discount ($18 for the paperback, $24 for the hardcover and $8.95 for the ebook edition). Introduction (free) Check out my updated Books and Films. Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com Subscribe to my Substack for free My recent books: Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site. THE REVOLUTION TRILOGY: Investing In Revolution Ultra-Processed Life The Mythology of Progress Systemic Problems/Solutions Investing In Revolution (2025) Introduction (free) The Mythology of Progress (2024) Introduction (free) Global Crisis, National Renewal (2021) Introduction (free) Money and Work Unchained (2017) Introduction (free) A Radically Beneficial World (2015) Introduction (free) What You Can Do Yourself Ultra-Processed Life (2025) Introduction (free) Self-Reliance in the 21st Century (2022) Introduction (free) When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal (2022) Introduction (free) Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy (2014) Intro (free) Novels The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher Intro (free) The Secret Life of an Asian Heroine First chapters (free) Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com. Subscribe to my Substack for free Investing In Revolution print $18, (Kindle $8.95, Hardcover $24 (145 pages, 2025) 
Only now do we see that we've been investing in revolution for decades--not the revolutions we thought we were investing in, revolutions in technology and finance, but in the social revolution made inevitable by the extremes that we've reached in our single-minded pursuit of private gains.
The pendulum that we've pushed to an extreme will swing to the opposite extreme, and the artifices that have propped up a facade a stability for decades will accelerate the disorder rather than reverse it. We now stand at the point of decision, and this book offers a path to a reformation and renewal that serves the shared interests of us all, not just the few. Introduction (free) Ultra-Processed Life print $16, (Kindle $7.95, audiobook, Hardcover $20 (129 pages, 2025) 
Ultra-Processed Life: the substitution of a synthetic, commoditized, very profitable facsimile for what was once authentic.
Ultra-Processed Life is my term for everything that is analogous to ultra-processed snacks: attractively marketed, instantly alluring, easy to consume, addictive by design, tasty in the moment but harmful over time, its origins a black box of unknown processes, the brightly colored product bearing no resemblance to the real-world ingredients, an idealized form of what is inherently imperfect, untethered from the natural world. As with many others, the catalyst for my exploration was a life-threatening medical crisis that did not have a specific cause. This led me to wonder if our entire way of life is like an ultra-processed snack: tasty but not healthy, edible but stripped of the nutrients we need to be healthy, addictive by design. Introduction (free) The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $20, (Kindle $9.95, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) audiobook, Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF) 
What if the policies to accelerate growth are no longer working because our fix for every problem--growth at any cost--is failing? We're told Progress is inevitable as a result of technology, but everyday life is getting harder, not easier--the opposite of Progress, what I call Anti-Progress.
What if the real source of the unraveling is far deeper than economics or politics? What if the problem is what we see as the inevitable destiny of humanity--Progress--is actually a modern mythology, disconnected from the real-world consequences of growth for growth's sake? We indignantly reject that Progress is a mythology, but our need for mythology hasn't gone away because we've mastered technology; we've created a modern mythology of technology that is heedless of its own consequences. To truly progress, we need a new mythology aligned to 21st century realities. Read the Introduction and first chapter for free
Recent entries: Welcome to the Stockyard of Unaffordability March 20, 2026 Why Credit Creates Bubbles That Break the Economy March 18, 2026 Why AI Malware (and Harmful Second Order Effects) Are Out of Control March 16, 2026 This Polycrisis Is Unique March 13, 2026 Paging Nostradamus: You Have a Margin Call March 11, 2026 Iran, En-Lai, Napoleon, Mike Tyson and Model Collapse March 9, 2026 Perverse Incentives Have Created a Runaway Media Monster March 6, 2026 Things Change March 3, 2026 The War March 1, 2026 The Decay of our Quality of Life No Longer Aligns with the Narrative February 26, 2026 How We Got Here: Moral Flexibility Leads to Moral Decay February 25, 2026 Money Is Funny That Way: The Case for USD Supremacy February 23, 2026
What Defines a "Good Economy"? Social Mobility and Not Losing Ground
February 20, 2026
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Extra-Special Bonus Aphorisms:
"There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity." (Douglas MacArthur) "We are what we repeatedly do." (Aristotle) "Do the thing and you shall have the power." (Ralph Waldo Emerson) "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." (E.F. Schumacher, via Tom R.) "He who will not risk cannot win." (John Paul Jones) "When we drink coffee, ideas march in like the army." (Honore de Balzac) "Progress is not possible without deviation." (Frank Zappa, via Richard Metzger) "Victory favors those who take pains." (amat victoria curam) "The man who has a garden and a library has everything." (Cicero, via Lee Bentley) "A healthy homecooked family meal and a home garden are revolutionary acts." (CHS) "Do you know what amazes me more than anything else? The impotence of force to organize anything." (Napoleon Bonaparte) "The way of the Tao is reversal" Or "Reversal is the movement of Tao." (Lao Tzu) "Chance favours the prepared mind." (Louis Pasteur) "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." (Winston Churchill) "Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasures." (Rumi) "The realm of gratitude is boundless." (CHS, 11/25/15) "History doesn't have a reverse gear." (CHS, 12/22/15) Smith's Law of Conservation of Risk: Every sustained action has more than one consequence. Some consequences will appear positive for a time before revealing their destructive nature. Some consequences will be intended, some will not. Some will be foreseeable, some will not. Some will be controllable, some will not. Those that are unforeseen and uncontrollable will trigger waves of other unforeseen and uncontrollable consequences. (July 8, 2014)(thanks to Lew G. for retitling the idea.) Smith's Neofeudalism Principle #1: If the citizenry cannot replace a kleptocratic authoritarian government and/or limit the power of the financial Aristocracy at the ballot box, the nation is a democracy in name only. The Smith Corollary to Metcalfe's Law (The Network Effect): the value of the network is created not just by the number of connected devices/users but by the value of the information and knowledge shared by users in sub-networks and in the entire network. (CHS, 4/6/16) My Credo of Liberation: I no longer care if the power centers of our society--the distant, fortified castles of our financial feudal system--are changed by my actions, for I am liberated by the act of resistance. I am no longer complicit in perpetuating fraudulent feudalism and the pathology of concentrated power. I no longer covet signifiers of membership in the Upper Caste that serves the plutocracy. I am liberated from self-destructive consumerist-State financialization and the delusion that debt servitude and obedience to sociopathological Elites serve my self-interests. (Thank you, Klaus-Peter L., for reminding me) "We've become a culture of excuses rather than solutions: solutions always require sustained effort and discipline." (CHS 4/9/16) "Fraud as a way of life caters an extravagant banquet of consequences." (CHS 4/14/16) "Creativity = problem solving = value creation." (CHS 6/4/16) "Truth is powerful because it is the core dynamic of solving problems." (CHS 7/21/17) "We live in a system of human emotions that masquerades as a science (economics)." (CHS 1/1/18) "Always remember, your focus determines your reality." (George Lucas) "Diversity is for poor people. Sameness is for the successful." (GFB) "When power dissipates suddenly, it dissipates completely." (CHS 7/14/19) "Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves." (Henry David Thoreau) "Markets cannot price in the value of non-monetized natural assets such as diverse ecosystems." (CHS 7/14/19) "Magical thinking isn't optimism, it is folly." CHS 1/3/22) "Tune in (to self-reliance), drop out (of hyper-consumerism and debt-serfdom) and turn on (to relocalizing capital and agency)." (CHS 1/5/22) "The path to everything you desire starts here: like yourself as you are right now." (CHS 11/20/22) "There are only two signals: how many essentials you produce and share and if you're consuming less with better results. Everything else is noise." (CHS 12/17/22) "Liberation is no longer needing any confirmation or feedback from others or the world for one's sense of self. Wealth, fame, recognition, admiration, praise, prestige, approval, sainthood, martyrdom, success: none are needed, none are desired." (CHS 12/26/22) "When fame, wealth, prestige, status and glory are out of reach, you're free to pursue other more valuable things." (CHS 2/6/22) "It is the sacred duty of every activist who seeks to better their community to grow and share as much life-giving food as is humanly possible." (CHS 6/15/23) "Being anonymous, gray and unknown is the ideal state of freedom." (CHS 3/15/24) "We seem to have entered a world of anti-leisure and anti-productivity in which the unpaid shadow work demanded to keep all the complicated digital bits in motion obliterate our leisure and productivity." CHS (5/22/24) "It is axiomatic that failing systems work the best just before they fail catastrophically." Ray W. "Looking younger is mere technique; thinking younger demands creativity." CHS (10/16/24) "Tell me what's taboo and I'll tell you the truths that threaten the status quo." CHS (12/15/24) "This is the core of the Attention Economy: the ultimate addiction is the addiction to ourselves." CHS (1/28/25) "If You Seek the Truth, Look for What's Taboo." CHS (7/18/25) "My definition of self-reliance: the less you need, the easier it is to get what you need." CHS (7/26/25) "Mastery requires reading and doing." CHS (7/28/25) "The replacement of authentic value, quality, agency, choice, trust, legitimacy and experience with self-serving facsimiles is the key dynamic of Ultra-Processed Life, my term for the present-day human condition." CHS (8/12/25) "Ultra-Processed Life replaces an authentic experience with a synthetic, simulated, commoditized, highly profitable version that's superficially attractive but destructive over the long term." CHS (8/12/25) "What we see everywhere is the replacement of authentic things--including democracy--with synthetic facsimiles designed to maintain the illusion of choice and value." CHS (8/12/25) "Sometimes certainty is the enemy we don't even see and uncertainty is our most faithful ally." CHS (9/20/25) |
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